


The Adventure of the Purloined Heart

by ladyblahblah



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: First Time, M/M, Mystery, Rentboys, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyblahblah/pseuds/ladyblahblah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gruesome murder unveils secrets kept buried for years.  Some feelings can only be hidden for so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my hard drive for a little over two years.  I decided it might be time to do something with it.

_Chapter One_

In my years as friend and biographer to Sherlock Holmes, I have witnessed many sights to chill a man’s blood.  I have stared into the face of death countless times, and seen the ravages of man’s basest and cruelest passions in all their infinite varieties.  For years I held the sight of Mr. Enoch Drubber in my mind as the basest, most horrific example of what one man can do to another.  It also assumed a vital importance in my memories, a kind of milestone in my life, for that death marked the beginning of my strange and wonderful partnership with Sherlock Holmes.  In the winter of 1894, however, that long-held image was transplanted with what will surely remain until my death the foulest and most personally significant crime in my knowledge.

The East End of London has a well-earned reputation as the city’s seedy underbelly, where demons dwell to cater to any and all of Man’s vices.  Some of their lairs are better known than others; however, for the man who is willing to look, satisfaction can always be found no matter how peculiar his desires might be.  My own lusts, though perhaps not as unusual as decent citizens would like to believe, still necessitated occasional fortification at such an establishment. 

For many years, filled with the shame bred of our society’s rigid morality, I had tried to eradicate or ignore my preference for my own gender.  In my most desperate effort I even married, and though I may have favored the company of men it is not a lie to say that I grew to care for my wife more deeply than I had believed possible.  She was my only consolation after the death of my friend, and for her I found the strength to resist the devils that nightly whispered temptation in my ear.  When she was taken from me, in my distress from such a double blow of grief to lose both friend and spouse, I let myself slide back into the shameless behavior that I had vowed to discontinue after my return from Afghanistan.  When Holmes returned, miraculously alive, I swore to stop again; my resolve lasted for less than a month.

It will probably not surprise my long-time readers to learn that I had long harbored an unnatural affection for my friend Sherlock Holmes.  He himself has often said that I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I can not imagine that I conceal my feelings any better in the written word.  I could not say precisely how those feelings came about; had I been aware of their development at the time, perhaps I could have stopped it. 

In all honesty, I felt safe enough engaging rooms with him when we met, for the simple reason that at that time I felt nothing like attraction towards him.  Unsurprising, perhaps, for Holmes is not at all handsome in the conventional sense.  Thin to the point of gauntness, his pale skin accentuated by the raven blackness of his hair, his gray eyes capable of the most uncomfortable keenness in their gaze; I found him upon that first encounter to be altogether too strange, too intense for my liking.

It was, at the height of irony, that very intensity that eventually led to my downfall.  The longer I knew him the more I grew to be fascinated by him, astonished at his genius and enthusiastically grateful for any opportunity to observe him in his work.  I can hardly describe my elation when, upon the arrival of a new client several days after the conclusion of the Drubber case, he did not pack me off to my room but requested that I remain to hear the man’s story. 

Thus it was that over time he grew, in my eyes, to nearly godlike proportions.  One day, nearly a year into our acquaintance, I made what he finally judged to be an insightful deduction, and he beamed at me in a burst of pride such as I had never seen before.  My heart faltered at how beautiful that smile made him seem to me; in that moment Sherlock Holmes became the most breathtaking creature in God’s creation, and I knew that I was lost.

Since that time I had striven to convince myself that my attraction to Sherlock Holmes was nothing but the result of my long abstinence from the sexual company that I preferred.  For a time I managed a fair amount of success.  However, when I turned and saw him standing in place of the old bookseller that momentous April morning, I could lie to myself no longer.  I had indulged my illicit passions only the night before, yet my first impulse was still to take him in my arms and bear him to the ground that I might prove, in the most delicious way, that he was no ghost, but flesh and blood.

Luckily, I fainted first.

My fear of detection was constant once I moved back into Baker Street, but I could no more stop my indulgences than I could have refused Holmes’s request that I return.  I did not trust myself, now that I had acknowledged my desire for him, to keep from demonstrating that desire should I allow it to grow unchecked.  Therefore I cut back on the habit into which I had fallen, but did not give it up entirely.  In each of my shameful visits to sate my lusts I bought another week or two of safety for my friend.

I stood one cold December night on such a visit, at the back door of a brothel with an inverted reputation.  It was a place I had visited many times before and would have, if not for the occurrence of subsequent events, continued to frequent for Heaven only knows how long.  That night, less than five minutes after my arrival, I stared out of the doorway and felt my carefully constructed deceptions come crashing down around my head.

The man next to me—I say man though at the time he seemed, at only twenty-five years of age, nearly a boy to me—was shaking violently, and I strongly suspected that my arm around him was the only thing keeping him upright.  I could not blame him; even after my tenure in Afghanistan the sight in front of me was enough to turn my stomach.

A body lay in the small courtyard behind the house, already partially covered by the falling snow.  The light from the doorway did not quite penetrate the shadows that surrounded the corpse, but even in the meager light one could clearly make out the gaping hole, like a great yawning maw, in the center of the man’s chest.  I looked away, turning my companion’s face into my shoulder and holding his head as he trembled.

“It’s all right, Thomas,” I soothed, letting my medical instincts take over as my mind reeled from the grisly sight.  “Don’t look, there’s a lad.” 

My heart was racing, though sadly not in the way I had anticipated when I had ventured out this evening.  The lean body pressed against mine, the dark hair against my cheek, the angular face buried in my coat were all eerily, achingly familiar.  There was no use pretending that I had chosen this man for any other reason than his resemblance to my friend.  To see him now, however, this false Holmes in such a trembling state of terror, produced an alarming sense of unreality that threatened to unman me.

He drew in an unsteady breath and, after a moment more, pulled away.  “I’ve seen dead bodies before,” he said, his voice quavering.  “But that . . . what’s happened to him?”

“I don’t know.”  In the absence of someone to comfort, my own nerves were quickly becoming uncontrollable.  I fought against the nausea that rose within me.  “Do you recognize him?”

Thomas shook his head.  “No; he ain’t one of us.  A client, I suppose,” he whispered, running his hands over his face.  “We’re done for.  We’ll have to call the coppers, an’ we’ll all end up in Reading, or worse.”  His trembling hadn’t ceased; it had, if anything, grown more severe.

I thought quickly.  My first inclination, I admit, was to flee; if the police did indeed arrive and find me there, I would be ruined.  I was in violation of the law many times over, and even if I were spared Wilde’s fate my reputation would never recover.  Worst of all, I would bring Holmes down with me unless he swiftly and unequivocally cut me out of his life.  It was difficult to determine which possibility held the most terror for me.

The police would certainly have to be called; there was no way to avoid it.  Yet the very thought of how they would undoubtedly handle this case, the ease with which they would destroy the victim’s memory as thoroughly as they destroyed the murderer’s reputation, set my teeth on edge.  The investigation could not be left in their hands alone.  Unfortunately, that left only one option, and it was one that started ice-cold fear gnawing at my gut.

I had always known that I risked much every time I entered this house, but never had I felt so certain of my ruin from one side or another.  If Holmes were to be brought in on the case there was every chance that he would realize I had been at the scene—it was almost supernatural at times how thoroughly he could deduce a man’s actions from the smallest scrap of evidence.  If he did discover my true nature, the deviant tendencies that I had tried so valiantly to hide from him, there was every chance that he would decide to terminate our friendship even without police encouragement. 

I chanced another glance outside, and my resolve firmed.  There were greater concerns at hand than my own.  A murderer was on the loose and needed to be brought to justice.  I turned to Thomas and gripped him firmly by the shoulders.

“Listen to me.  It will be all right, as long as you do exactly as I say.  Listen closely now; this is important.”

When I had instructed him in what to do I left that place as quickly as possible, walking nearly halfway home before I dared to hail a cab.  I had the cabby drop me a block away, and as I looked down Baker Street I took a moment to collect myself.  It would hardly do to have my long-kept secret revealed simply because I could not keep my composure. 

I busied myself with my usual ritual after such a night—brushing away any stray hairs, straightening my clothes, checking my shoes and trousers to ensure that I carried no speck of that distinctive East End mud.  Such precautions would almost certainly be in vain if Holmes ever took it upon himself to discover my whereabouts, but I saw no reason to shove the evidence of my activities beneath his nose.

By the time I had finished my imperfect ablutions my racing pulse had calmed, and I felt capable of facing what lay ahead of me.  I made my way to our front door and strolled inside as if—I hope—nothing were at all amiss.

“Good evening, Doctor,” Mrs. Hudson greeted me in surprise, stepping out of her rooms to take my hat and coat.  “You’re back rather early this evening.  Is your patient doing better?”

“No better, but no worse.  He is, as always, in perfect health.”

I smiled, trying to fight down the flush that wanted to rise in my cheeks.  My invention of a hypochondriac patient had kept both Holmes and Mrs. Hudson from questioning my outings too closely; it was necessary, but I loathed the lie.  I excused myself as quickly as possible, waving away Mrs. Hudson’s offer of a late supper, and made my way up the stairs.

I was greeted, as I so often was, by the sound of Holmes’s violin: a lovely, melancholy air that I did not recognize.  I stopped, my hand on the doorknob, arrested by that bittersweet sound.  It seemed to me to embody all of my hopeless longing for the man who played it: each sleepless night spent dreaming of his touch, each stolen glance, every painful realization that my affections were not returned, each failed attempt to leave the sweet torment of his presence.  The sound ripped at my heart, and yet I could not bring myself to turn away.  Indeed, how like the man.

As I paused by the sitting room door it crossed my mind that I might very easily continue upstairs, crawl into bed and forget for a few short hours what I had seen.  My friend would tell you that I am no coward; I know that for the lie that it is.  Still, I could not bring myself to behave like a callow youth.  With a deep breath for courage I opened the door.

He stood in his shirtsleeves, his back to the door, his entire long, lean frame swaying in time with the music he called forth from his instrument.  With the fire behind him casting a sort of halo he truly seemed to be from another world, a creature not of flesh but living flame.  Then he turned and was only my old friend once more, smiling at my unexpected arrival.

“Watson!”  He set aside his violin and bow and gestured me into the room.  “You’ve escaped early!  Your patient, perhaps, has finally shuffled off this mortal coil?”

I laughed despite myself.  “Not at all.  He’s still fit as a fiddle.  But I gave him a handful of sugar pills and told him they were the strongest medicine I could provide.”

“Hah!”  Holmes collapsed in his chair, an amused grin stretching from ear to ear.  “How perfectly devious of you, Watson!  I wouldn’t have thought you’d have it in you.”

“Yes, well,” I said a touch uncomfortably.  “I’ll admit I was rather surprised at it, myself.”

“If you prove to be so cunning in all your future endeavors, I shall have to watch you rather more closely.  Though I still fail to see why you persist in making these visits at all.”

“I’ve told you before, Holmes,” I said, hoping that he would take my heightened color as a sign of my usual temper, “he was one of my first patients when I opened my practice.  When I sold it—”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently.  “You simply couldn’t bring yourself to abandon him, and so allowed him to convince you to pay him a house call whenever his whim dictates.  Really, Watson, you have an abominable habit of letting others trample all over you.”  He gave a wry smile.  “I ought to know; I have a request that I must make of you.”

“Yes?”

“I received a note this afternoon,” he said, gesturing to the breakfast table where I could see the folded paper lying.  “A young woman is concerned about her brother—the note was written by her fiancé, requesting that we pay a call on her tomorrow at our convenience.  As it specifically mentions both of us, I wonder if you would be so good as to accompany me?”

“Well of course I will, Holmes,” I said.  “You know that I am always eager to be in on one of your cases.”

“I had hoped you would say so,” Holmes said with the barest of smiles.  “But here now!  What’s this?”  The bell had sounded downstairs, and I was grateful that Holmes pulled out his watch at that moment so that my abrupt tension went unnoticed.  “A visitor at this hour?”

He leaped up, snatching his coat from the settee and pulling it on excitedly.  “A client, Watson, or else I’m much mistaken!”

“You think so?”

“As I am expecting no one, and you have not mentioned the possibility of a visitor yourself, I must presume that such an arrival must be someone in dire straits indeed to be calling here at nearly nine o’clock in the evening.”  He smoothed down his hair and positioned himself by the mantle, his attempt at nonchalance undone by his subtle straining toward the door.  “Let us see what this bitter night has brought us, Watson,” he murmured an instant before the door swung open.

I had instructed Thomas most carefully to keep a straight face and, above all, show no surprise at what he might find when he entered 221b.  To his credit he did not so much as blink to see me sitting there, but glanced back and forth between Holmes and myself in a visible display of nerves.

“Excuse me.  Mr. Holmes?  Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am Sherlock Holmes.”  I glanced up to see my friend’s face alive with interest.  To my surprise, he stepped forward and extended his hand.  Thomas, with only a second’s hesitation, stepped farther into the room and grasped the offered hand in a firm shake.  “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.  And who, may I ask, are you?”

“My name’s Thomas Price,” he said, gripping his battered Homburg hat tightly in his hands.  At Holmes’s imperious gesture he stumbled back and perched on the very edge of the settee.  “I . . . I need your help, Mr. Holmes.”

“Yes, Mr. Price, I gathered as much.”  He returned to the mantel, took up his pipe and began to fill it with his favorite shag.  “What I am less clear on,” he said, lighting his pipe without deigning to look at our visitor, “is why a male prostitute from Bethnal Green should come to me seeking aid and advice.”

“Holmes!” I gasped.  Unable to say anything more, I simply sat there gaping like a fish.  I glanced over to see Thomas looking pale and frightened.

“What . . .”  His voice broke and he cleared his throat before continuing.  “What, may I ask, makes you so confident in voicing such an obscene charge?”

“My dear man, you carry on your person a veritable wealth of information.  Your shirt has been mended no fewer than three times,” said Sherlock Holmes, sitting back in his chair and applying himself to his pipe, “each time having been rent asunder, necessitating the substitution of some of the buttons for others which, as you can see, do not quite match.  The knees of your trousers are rather threadbare and dusty, as if you are used to spending a good deal of time on your knees; your hands, however, are uncallused—in fact, they are remarkably soft.  There are some rather telling pale stains around the edges of your cuffs.  Several marks are clearly visible on your neck, and the skin around your mouth has been reddened by rubbing repeatedly against a beard.  Your shoes bear that mud so often found upon the noted pugilists of York Hall, but you have made no effort to remove it, leading me to believe that your presence in that area is a result of your profession rather than mere dalliance.  There are, perhaps, one or two other little points which have called my attention, but I see no reason to belabor the subject.”

With that he took a long draw on his pipe and shot me a thoroughly smug and self-satisfied look, as though daring me to dispute his logic with another cry of offended courtesy.

“I hafta confess, you’re spot-on, Mr. Holmes,” Thomas said breathlessly.  “True enough, it would be foolish to deny the truth in the presence of such a man as you.”  I thought I imagined his eyes darting to me then, before he leaned forward earnestly.  “And if you can discover so much about me after so brief an examination, I believe you may truly be the man to help.  That is, of course, if you’ll agree to listen to my story.”

“I am always prepared to listen to an interesting account, and I have a premonition that yours should be fascinating, indeed.”  His eyes glittered for a moment before he closed his eyes, puffing languidly on his pipe.  “Pray, proceed.”

If Thomas thought Holmes’s indolent posture odd, he gave no indication.  “I live an’ work, as you have said, in Bethnal Green.  I was a bit of a scrapper once; got myself in a rough situation a few too many times, though, and had to retire young.  I fell on hard times, I’m afraid; couldn’t bear to leave the neighborhood, spent too much time at the Hall relivin’ old glories.”  He stopped abruptly and shook his head, a wry smile covering his face.  “Well, I suppose it hardly matters how I came to be what I am, an’ I won’t waste your time with explanations.

“I work in a house with fourteen others, an’ we all earn our room an’ board by giving the landlord a percentage of our . . . wages.  I said that I needed your help, Mr. Holmes, but in fact it’s more than just me that’s in this spot; it’s for all of us that I’m speakin’ to you tonight.

“I was with a client tonight, an’ he fancied a bit of a stroll outside before we got down to things.”  With Holmes’s eyes safely closed Thomas dared a brief wink in my direction.  “Well, it’s no concern to me if a gentleman wants to spend part of his hour walkin’ about instead of . . . ah . . . you take my meaning, I suppose.”  He flushed slightly, clearly uncomfortable to have broached the subject in such a place as a gentleman’s sitting room.  “In any case, I told him there was a prettyish little garden in the back, for all that it’s the middle of winter and frigid cold.  We were just about to head out there when—”

His bravado faded, and the nerves of a few hours past returned to the forefront.  “There was a man,” he said, his voice trembling faintly.  “A dead man, all stretched out on the stones with the snow fallin’ on him as pretty as you please.  An’ he . . . he had a hole . . . a great, huge hole right in the middle of his chest.  Ice all ‘round the edges, like cold little teeth in a bloody mouth.”

Holmes’s eyes flew open and he shot forward in his chair, his gaze fixed on Thomas with alarming intensity.  “That must have been quite a sight,” he murmured.  “This man—did you recognize him?”

Thomas shook his head.  “No, sir, I didn’t.  But Laurence did.  I showed the landlord an’ we cleared out the house as quick as we could, called all the lads together.  Laurence nearly lost his supper over the sight, said he’d serviced the gentleman earlier tonight.”

“A client, then,” Holmes said thoughtfully.  “And your own?  What became of him?”

“Lit out of there soon as he saw the body, face all deadly pale under his beard.”

“Hmm.  A reasonable reaction.”  Holmes leaned back again, but it was clear from the gleam in his hooded eyes and the absent manner in which he held his pipe that his interest was most avidly engaged.  “Mr. Price, why come to me with this?  It seems to me that it is clearly a matter for the police.”

Thomas’s jaw tightened.  “Mr. Holmes, I ain’t an idiot.  I know I’m on the wrong side of the law every day of my life, an’ so are all the other lads in that house.  I know how coppers’ minds work, too—we’re a house full of criminals in their minds, an’ they won’t look any farther than the lot of us to find their killer.”  He stared down blindly at his hands, twisting the brim of his hat in his distress.  “Maybe someone in the house did do it; I don’t know.  But I reckon there’s at least as much of a chance that someone else did it altogether.

“Some of us were all for not reportin’ it at all, just takin’ the body an’ chuckin’ it in the river.  But Simon said it could just as well be one of us next time, and wouldn’t we want this madman well locked away instead of showin’ up to hack us to bits?

“That’s when I remembered a client of mine a few weeks ago who’d mentioned you, Mr. Holmes.  He was crazy for Dr. Watson’s stories—he even read me a few, so as we could play—”  His eyes shot up, and glancing between the two of us he blushed to the roots of his hair.  He cleared his throat.  “That don’t matter, I suppose.  But I got the idea that you might look into it, Mr. Holmes, as it seemed the sort of thing you fancied and . . .”  He lowered his eyes again.  “And we ain’t got anywhere else to turn,” he finished softly.

Holmes regarded him for a moment, his keen gaze seeming to peer straight through to the man’s soul.  Then he stood and turned to face the fire.

“Mr. Price, I advise you to return to Bethnal Green and summon the police immediately.  Each second you delay only worsens the case against you.”

Thomas covered his eyes with his hand, his shoulders slumping in despair.  He stood and headed for the door.

“Dr. Watson and I shall be there shortly, if you will be so good as to leave the address,” Holmes said, turning to flash a lightning grin at the dumbstruck Thomas, “and we shall see if we can not shed some light on this little problem.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Holmes!”  He fumbled briefly with the paper and pencil that I handed him, but managed to scribble down the address that I knew so well.  “Thank you!”

“Yes, yes,” Holmes said impatiently.  “Off to the police!  Quickly now!  And whatever you do, mention nothing of your visit here.”

No sooner had he shut the door behind him than Holmes abandoned all pretense of lassitude, flying into action immediately.

“Well, Watson!” he cried, scattering papers left and right as he searched the chaos of the room.  “A pretty little puzzle indeed, I fancy!  Where the devil is it?  Ah!”  He held up his lens with a triumphant flourish.  “Tell me, what do you think of Mr. Price’s story?”

“To be honest,” I said, “I’m a bit surprised at your enthusiasm.  A morbid case, to be sure, but other than the mystery of the culprit it seems to be rather straightforward.”

“You think so?” he asked, his eyes glittering as he turned to me.  He tutted, “For shame, Watson.  These years without me seem to have blunted your deductive skills even further, if that is possible.”

“And what vital clue,” I said with some sharpness, “have I overlooked this time?”

“Now, Watson, think!  You have just secured the publication of your account of our little adventure regarding the Bruce-Partington submarine.  Can you not remember our most vital clue in that case?  The blood, Watson!” he cried.  “The blood!”

“But . . .”  I followed him as he dashed out the door and down the stairs.  “He said nothing about blood!”

“Precisely!”  He whipped on his overcoat and hat as I struggled into my own.  “Our Thomas Price possesses a talent for distinctly florid description—recall his likening of the ice crystals around the wounds to teeth in a bloody mouth.  Yet no other mention of blood colors his description?  No congealing pools, no vivid splashes?  Tell me, Watson, what manner of man can have a hole gouged in his person without managing to spill quite a copious amount of blood?”

Realization struck like a thunderbolt.  “Of course!  One who was already dead!”

“That’s my Watson!  The question, then, is why did our killer mutilate the body in such a way when it could only have increased his chances of being caught in the act?  You have the address?  Excellent!  Let us set off.  No, do not bother with a cab, we shall be walking.  It is best,” he said as we set off down the street, “if we allow the official police to arrive before us.  Our presence at a crime scene that they themselves had only just gotten wind of might be . . . awkward, especially given the venue.  With any luck, however, we may get there in time to stop them completely trampling the scene and obliterating the clues we seek.”

We lapsed into silence, he to ponder the clues that we had already been provided and I, for my part, to contemplate the alarming fact that my two worlds were shortly to come crashing headlong into each other.  I managed to take a small amount of comfort from the fact that while Holmes had immediately deduced the truth about Thomas, he still seemed to have no suspicions about his Boswell.  His demonstration made it clear that my precautions upon my return had been well-thought of; without them, there was no doubt that he would have seen through my façade as easily as he saw through Thomas’s.

I was immensely grateful, as well, for Thomas’s discretion.  Apart from that one ill-advised wink his response to me had remained remarkably casual.  It had undoubtedly been a great risk, remaining in the room for his arrival, and not only because of my fear of Holmes’s discovery.  Thomas now knew who I was, and my reputation—indeed, my freedom—rested in his hands.  I only hoped that he would continue to prove himself worthy of the admittedly foolish amount of trust that I was giving him.

Holmes and I had walked for some blocks, arm-in-arm, when he suddenly slowed his pace.  I shot him a questioning glance.

“I realize, Watson, that I have been rather . . . presumptuous.”  He glanced at me, then away.  “You have noted before, I believe, that conventional morality bears little weight with me.  I should much rather lend my services to a man from Bethnal Green whose case contains those elements of interest which make an investigation worthy of my time, than undertake a trivial errand be it for our illustrious monarch herself. 

“I sometimes forget, however, that not all men share my views of the world.  It has not escaped me that you seem . . . uncomfortable with our current destination; my dear friend, I would not have you discomfited in the course of aiding me.  Should you wish to return to Baker Street and not involve yourself with this rather sordid business, I assure you I will quite understand.”

There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to follow Holmes’s suggestion; God knows I should have done so.  The fewer people within that house who learned of my identity the safer I would be.  It was abysmally foolish of me to continue, just as it had been foolish for me to remain in our sitting room when I had known of Thomas’s imminent arrival.  But I could not bring myself to abandon this mystery that I had, for once, discovered.

Even still, these many years later, I can not entirely break myself of this vile habit of falsehoods.  In truth, it was not the case that I could not bear to abandon, but my friend.  Holmes was showing me that insightful consideration of his that was all the more precious for its rarity, and I had absolutely no defense against it.

“No, Holmes,” I said.  “I shall accompany you; it takes more than this to turn my stomach.”

The look he shot me was such as had never graced his face before, so full of affectionate pride that I felt my heart lurch in my chest.

“Good old Watson,” he murmured.  “Come, then!” he cried, picking up his pace again.  “To hell with propriety and let us see what two old hounds such as we are might discover.”

 

 

[Chapter 2](http://ladyblahblah.livejournal.com/1614.html)  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A murder unveils secrets kept buried for years.  Sorry, I completely suck at summaries, maybe I'll come up with something better later on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting on my hard drive for a little over two years.  I decided it might be time to do something with it.

 

We arrived at the house to see a police cab parked outside and a familiar figure alighting from it.  
  
“Inspector Hopkins!” Holmes called out as we crossed the street, brandishing his stick to gain the man’s attention.  Hopkins turned, surprise clear in his expression.  
  
“Mr. Holmes!  Dr. Watson!  Fancy seeing the two of you here of all places!”  A look of sudden suspicion crossed his face.  
  
“It is indeed a surprise, Inspector,” Holmes said good-naturedly.  “We have just tidied up a few loose ends on our latest case—rather nasty business over in Whitechapel—and were headed back to Baker Street when we spotted your hansom.  And you, Inspector?” he asked genially.  “What brings you to this district at this time of night?”  
  
“A case of my own,” he said with a touch of pride, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief that he had accepted Holmes’s explanation.  “Actually,” he continued thoughtfully, “since you’re here, you might want to take a look.  I fancy it might be right up your alley.”  
  
Holmes raised an eyebrow.  “This is not a raid, then?”  He glanced up at the house.  “I had heard rumors that the occupants of this particular house were in violation of a number of ordinances.”  
  
Hopkins chuckled.  “Unfortunately not.  We all know what it is, but they’re quick and they’re crafty, our boyos here.  Never able to catch them with enough evidence on hand to warrant an arrest.  Actually, it was one of them who called us out here tonight.  Apparently they got a bit of a surprise in their backyard, and—well, why don’t we just go back and take a look?  Seeing is better than telling, isn’t it?”  
  
I had broken out into a cold sweat during Inspector Hopkins’s speech, and I followed the two of them up the path on unsteady legs.  When I entered the house and saw Holmes standing in the very spot where I had so often selected my partner for the night, I was forced to grip the doorframe under a sudden bout of vertigo.  He heard me stumble and looked back in alarm, but I waved him on.  
  
“Is the doctor all right?” Hopkins asked anxiously.  
  
“Yes,” I heard Holmes answer as they walked further into the house.  “He simply finds this place trying to his nerves.  A bastion of English conservatism, is our Watson.”  
  
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.  My sickening fear was to be taken as moral outrage.  I, who had as much reason to be locked away in Reading as any of the men who lived here, was bravely pushing past my own conventions in the interests of seeing justice done.  It was horrifically funny, and the hypocrisy of it all nearly made me burst into hysterical laughter.  Surely this was what it felt like to go mad.  
  
With a supreme effort of will I managed to compose myself and followed the others through the house.  I made my way into the courtyard just in time to see Hopkins, a lantern held high in his hand, turn away from the body with his hand clasped over his mouth.  
  
“His wallet is missing,” Holmes said as I approached.  
  
“Robbery?”  
  
“Doubtful.  It may easily have been left behind when he decided to visit this house, that his identity might not be ascertained.”  
  
“You were right,” I said sotto-voice, crouching beside him to examine the corpse in the soft yellow light his lantern.  “There’s blood, but not nearly as much as there should be given the injury.  Holmes!”  I grasped his arm in my excitement and he pulled away as he stood.  “His throat . . .”  
  
“Has been cut,” he said succinctly.  He was staring down, not at the man’s wounds, but at his face.  “But that is not what killed him.”  
  
“No,” I muttered, still crouched next to the body.  The morbidity of the situation was welcome to me—the corpse, freezing on the ground, seemed to keep me rooted in the realm of the physical and away from those flights of mental fancy that threatened to do away with my reason.  “The blood again—there’s simply not enough.”  
  
Inspector Hopkins cleared his throat and turned back toward us.  “The murder must have taken place somewhere else, then,” he said, chancing another glance at the body.  “Inside, perhaps.”  
  
“I think not, Inspector.  Despite this damnable snow that has piled up, there are clear signs of a struggle in the disturbed ground.  Watson, if you would be so kind as to lift our unfortunate friend’s arm?”  
  
I picked up the man’s arm and looked at the bottom of his hand where it had rested against the ground.  It was a mottled purple, like a particularly violent bruise.  
  
“Noticeable lividity,” I remarked.  I looked up.  “These wounds . . . of course!  They must have been inflicted post-mortem.  See, Inspector, how the blood has flowed smoothly from the severed jugular rather than spraying out.  When his throat was cut his heart had already stopped pumping.”  I faltered, my eyes drawn to the man’s chest.  “His heart . . .”  
  
“Taken,” Holmes finished.  Hopkins and I both looked up sharply, only to find him gazing into the distance rather than at the scene in front of him.  “I imagine, if you wipe away the blood on his neck, you will find the remains of the evidence that this man met his end by strangulation.”  
  
I shot upright, my own heart stalling in my chest.  “Holmes,” I croaked out.  “You can’t . . . you don’t think . . .”  
  
“The Ripper,” Inspector Hopkins whispered.  “But . . . it’s been six years!  It can’t be him, after all this time, surely!”  
  
“No,” Holmes said with a brief smile.  “I don’t believe it is.  The compulsion to kill is a powerful one; once indulged, it is unlikely to lay dormant for so long.”  He spun around to face us.  “In addition, the details are all frightfully wrong.  Oh, not of the death—those are perfectly aligned.  But the victim is a man rather than a woman, and certainly not accustomed to making his living catering to others’ sexual whims.  Observe the clothing!  Or rather, what is left of it.  Top quality, every stitch.  No, Hopkins, this was a gentleman.  Interview this house’s residents and—if you can get anything from them at all—I wager you’ll find that this poor fellow was a patron of the establishment.”  
  
“But if it’s not him—”    
  
“A copycat; someone who wished for our first thoughts to be of someone else.  But our man is not cut from the same cloth, I think,” he said, mostly to himself.  “The killing itself was not planned—note the rather imprudent location, the likelihood of being seen and apprehended.  No, the murder occurred on the spur of the moment; the mutilation, however, did not.”  
  
He bent again to consider the body.  “A slashed throat and a purloined heart, both inflicted post mortem.  And both, unless I am much mistaken, intended to make our minds fix immediately upon that illustrious name that Inspector Hopkins so obligingly presented.”  He straightened.  “There is no doubt in my mind that what lies before us is a crime of passion.  But a surpassingly odd one.”  
  
“Odd, indeed,” Hopkins muttered, and heaved a resigned sigh.  “Well.  I suppose I’ll have to give questioning these men a go.”  
  
“You are unlikely to get a thing from them,” I warned him, “unless they know that they will not be harried for any incriminations they may be forced to give against themselves.”  
  
“An opportunity to gain confessions from the lot and I won’t be able to use a one,” Hopkins grumbled, and set off into the house.  Holmes and I followed behind.  
  
“What’s our next move, then?”  
  
“We are going to follow behind the official police,” he said tersely, “and question the men once they have finished with them.  It is unlikely that Inspector Hopkins will be able to secure any helpful testimony, even with the promise of immunity for other _incriminations_.”  
  
From what I overheard of the interview that Hopkins performed, his attempts went even more poorly than Holmes had anticipated.  As each witness walked off I expected Holmes to call him aside for our own investigation, but he simply leaned against one of the walls in the ragged entryway and took barely any notice of the men as they slipped past.  It was not until one Mr. Laurence St. James made his appearance that Holmes’s attention perked up; as he left the frustrated Hopkins to question the next man, Holmes gestured him aside.  
  
“Mr. St. James,” he greeted, leading him farther into the house.  “I gather, from what Mr. Price told me, that you had some passing acquaintance with the unfortunate fellow behind the house?”  
  
“Mr. P—oh, Tom?  Yeah,” he nodded, folding his arms around himself.  “Are you goin’ to help us, Mr. Holmes?”  
  
“I am going to try,” he said.  He glanced at me.  “Watson, would you be so kind as to wait for Mr. Price’s turn to be over and direct him to me?  I’d like to have another word with him before we leave.”  
  
With reluctance, I returned to my former station outside of the door.  It made me unspeakably uncomfortable to be in this house in this capacity, the more so because Holmes was here as well.  Infinitely worse, however, was to be forced into idleness with nothing to occupy me but my fevered thoughts.  I could not bear it with any amount of ease, and I fought against the urge to fidget as I waited for the police to finish their questioning.  
  
When at last Thomas emerged, I gestured him aside.  “Mr. Holmes would like to have a word with you.”  
  
“Ah.  If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’d like to have a word with you first.”  
  
My blood was ice, but I nodded calmly.  He led the way into a second, smaller parlor that I had never seen before.  I noticed, idly, that it lacked the garish decorations of the room that I was used to, where the men gathered for the clients’ perusal.  This room was shabbier, yet somehow more comforting; it was, I guessed, a room usually off-limits to the clientele, a place for the men to relax away from the odious reality that lay without.  Thomas clearly wanted privacy for this encounter.  I wondered just how much he was going to ask for and whether I would be able to afford it.  
  
He leaned his hip against the back of a battered old sofa and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, lighting one of his own before silently offering them up to me.  I took one and allowed him to light it from the end of his.  For a moment more we stood in silence, the air between us filling with acrid smoke from the cheap cigarettes.  
  
“This life . . .” he said at last.  “It’s a hard one.  When you start, you’re just like anyone else; you feel as much as other men, maybe more.”  He picked a speck of tobacco from his tongue and flicked it aside.  “After a while, you stop feelin’ so much.  You have to, or you’d go mad.  Proper society sees us as less than human somehow, and they’re right.  Lettin’ that part of you die is the only way to survive.”  
  
He took a last, long drag and crushed his cigarette out in a nearby tray, already filled to overflowing with burnt-out ends.  “Well,” he said suddenly, “no use beatin’ around the bush, is there?”  
  
“No, indeed,” I said stiffly.  
  
His eyes fixed on mine in a level stare.  “I been at this job for goin’ on six years now.  What’s left of my humanity’s bein’ eaten away quick enough as it is; I don’t see any call for me to hurry it along.  I just wanted you to know that your secret’s safe with me, Doctor.”  
  
I stood stock still for a moment before my knees gave out completely under a tidal wave of relief.  The enormity of how close I had been to ruin, and how narrowly I had escaped, washed over me.  The room began to spin, and I found myself a moment later sitting with my head between my knees, staring at the torn upholstery beneath my chair as Thomas patted my back soothingly.  
  
“There now,” he said, helping me to sit up.  He handed me a small flask that he had pulled from inside his jacket and I took a grateful drink.    
  
“Thank you.”  I handed the flask back to him and gripped his hand; I dared to look up at him again, my eyes fixed on his.  “Thank you.”  
  
He pulled away his hand and shrugged, looking away as though embarrassed.  “You’re a decent sort of man, Doctor.  I haven’t forgotten how you patched up Knox after that john used him so rough; I’ll make sure the other lads don’t forget it, either.”  He glanced back at me.  “We’re a decent sort, too, if we’re given the chance.”  His eyes suddenly lit up, mischief clear in their twinkling depths.  “Besides, keeping quiet is well worth it, now I’ve got to see him.”  
  
“See him?”  I frowned, not following his meaning.  “See who?”  
  
He grinned.  “The man you’re in love with.”  
  
I dropped back into the chair, my mouth agape.  “The man I’m . . . Thomas, no, I’m afraid—”  
  
“No use denyin’ it, Doctor,” he said insistently, the grin never fading from his face.  “You almost always picked me out if I wasn’t already occupied when you got here.  Now Simon, he figured you on just bein’ set in your ways.  But you can tell when a man’s thinkin’ of someone else.  It’s different, the during; deeper, somehow, like there’s more there than just the sweat and the feel of it.  The after, too, when they realize you’re not who they’ve been picturin’.  ‘Course,” he said thoughtfully, “I never guessed your bloke was Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself.”  He grinned again.  “But I never guessed who you were, either.  We all love your stories—well, ‘cept for Johnnie, but he ain’t got any more taste than what’s in his mouth.”  
  
“Ah . . . thank you.”  I did not know how else to respond to such an odd compliment.  Then a thought occurred to me.  “Thomas . . . you mentioned before, or began to mention, something about a . . . ah . . . game that your clientele favored sometimes.  I was wondering . . . well . . .”  
  
I had never seen a jaded professional blush so profusely.  “Oh.  Um.  Yeah.  Well, y’see . . . with men like us . . . well it’s rather a loaded phrase, isn’t it, ‘intimate friendship’?”  His blush deepened.  “And since I bear kind of a passin’ resemblance to Mr. Holmes, at least the way you describe him . . . old Knoxie, havin’ the build he does, turns a pretty good business on the other end, too—uh . . .”  He cleared his throat.  “Not that you’d . . . probably want to know about that, all things bein’ considered . . .”  
  
“Yes,” I said, fighting as best I could against a blush of my own.  “Quite.  Thank you, Thomas, that answers my question.  Well.”  I stood, feeling moderately steadier.  “As I said earlier, Holmes wanted to ask you a few more questions.  Come on; I’ll take you to him.”  
  
Out of habit more than anything, I put my hand at the small of his back to lead him from the room.  We had not yet reached the doorway, however, when Holmes appeared in it.  I dropped my hand with a guilty start, thankful that Holmes seemed to take no notice.  
  
“Ah, Watson, here you are.  And Mr. Price.”  He gave a brief, tight smile.  “There are one or two points which I would be most obliged if you would clear up for me.”  
  
“Of course, Mr. Holmes,” Thomas said, stepping forward.  
  
It was the first time that I had seen the two of them thus, side by side.  So similar and yet so markedly different; I was reminded irresistibly, seeing them together, of an elegant oil painting and the rough charcoal sketch that spawned it.  Both beautiful in their own right, the one for its refinement and the other for its raw imperfections.  The impression struck me so forcefully that for some moments I could do nothing but gaze upon the sight.  When I came back to my senses I perceived Thomas had voiced some question that I had missed in my daze.  
  
“No, no,” Holmes was saying, “we can carry out our discussion quite well in here.”  He strode into the room, stooping briefly to inspect the fire.  “Watson, I believe I’ve kept you from your bed long enough.  You can precede me back to Baker Street; among other things Mr. Price and I must negotiate my fee, and this little tete-a-tete may take some time.”  
  
I stood for a moment, confused.  “Of course, Holmes, if . . . if you think that’s best.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
I paused another moment, hurt by the implication that my presence was unnecessary.  While it was not without precedent for Holmes to send me away so unceremoniously, it was rare.  Nevertheless I am accustomed to taking Holmes’s direction with the assumption that his commands, though I may not see it at the time, are always for the best.  I turned, therefore, to go, only to be arrested by his voice once more.  
  
“Watson.”  I glanced back.  Holmes had risen but remained turned away from me, presenting his back.  “Make sure to have Hopkins lend you the use of that police cab.  The streets are not safe.”  
  
I waited another moment, but it seemed that he had nothing else to add.  Without a word of my own I left the room and walked, barely seeing, through the house.  The police were still milling about, interviewing those men who had yet to be questioned.  It would undoubtedly have been easier to simply walk home rather than attempt to break in upon an official investigation to beg the use of a cab.  At no point, however, did I dream of doing other than as Holmes had instructed.  
  
It took some time gain Hopkins’s attention, engaged as he was.  When I did, however, he gladly assented to my use of their conveyance.  My mind was racing all my way back to Baker Street; I thought that perhaps Holmes’s insistence has sprung from some task he wished me to perform, some line of investigation that I might not be able to pursue on foot.  I could think of nothing save an inspection of the inside of the cab; unsurprisingly, I found nothing of interest, and I could not help but think that if that had been Holmes’s intention he would have been much better served in examining the thing himself.  
  
By the time I returned home Mrs. Hudson had already retired.  I wondered what she would say if she knew that Holmes and I had spent the evening investigating a murder at an East End whorehouse.  In grim amusement, I decided that the revelation would likely earn no more than a resigned shake of her head.  She was well used by now to a certain amount of eccentricity from her lodgers.  Indeed, she rarely even bothered to berate Holmes anymore for the damage inflicted by his numerous chemical experiments, choosing more often to simply clean up the mess and add a few extra shillings to that month’s rent.  
  
I trod wearily up the stairs, hardly conscious that I was counting each one of the seventeen as I went.  It had become a habit of mine ever since Holmes had used them as an example of my inattention.  I could not say why I did it—perhaps I suspected that one day he would find a way to add or remove a step, and I wanted to be ready to catch him out before he could berate me for having taken no notice.  
  
The sitting room fire was still blazing merrily; Mrs. Hudson must have built it up again before she retired.  I was glad of it, for the night was frigidly cold.  I dreaded the state that my bedroom must be in, and thought briefly of dashing up to stoke the fire there so that the room might have a chance to warm by the time I went to bed.  However, I did not know when Holmes might return, nor for how long, and I did not wish to miss the opportunity to ask him about the police cab.  
  
I settled in, therefore, to wait, opening up the novel that I had left beside the settee earlier that day and wishing heartily that I was still out tracking down our mysterious murderer rather than sitting at home alone with my thoughts.  Much as I tried to concentrate on the story in my hands, my mind continually drifted back over the night’s events.  Those musings led to others and before I knew it the novel lay forgotten in my lap as I thought back to my first visit to that house.  
  
My time in Afghanistan had made me familiar with the kinds of signs signaling a house that catered to the needs of men like me.  I had seen several and recognized them for what they were in my years spent delving into London’s seedier aspects at Holmes’s side.  After Mary’s death I had watched the papers for reports of raids and arrests, telling myself that I was only indulging an idle curiosity.  Most of the addresses of which I was aware appeared in the news, but it came to my attention that there was one house that seemed to remain constantly outside of police detection.  
  
One night three weeks later I found myself outside of its doors without any clear recollection of how I had gotten there.  I watched with a certain odd detachment as my knuckles rapped out a clear tattoo on the door.  Seconds later it was swung open by a large, thickset man.  He lifted an eyebrow as he regarded me; I said nothing, but held up a sovereign between the fingers of my right hand.  The man stepped aside and I entered the house, the door shutting behind me with a grim finality.  
  
The man who had admitted me tugged on a bell pull and gestured to the open doorway on my left.  I entered a small, garish sitting room and found an assortment of men, some of them barely old enough to shave, all arranged in provocative poses on the various chairs and sofas.  The aberrance of my desires did not run to pederasty; beyond that, I cared little who I chose.  
  
I walked up to the first man I saw whose age and hygiene did not offend.  I can not even remember now what he looked like.  He stated his price as three shillings; I nodded, and he led me upstairs.  
  
That first sweaty, shameful encounter was over quickly.  I did not remove my clothes, as to do so would have necessitated the removal of my armband as well.  It seems ridiculous to remain concerned with formally mourning my wife in the midst of ravishing a man whom I had paid for the privilege, yet at the time I remember it being of the utmost importance in my mind.  Despite this attempt at detachment, the sensation of a masculine body after I had grown so used to a woman’s touch was devastating to my self-control.  In a matter of minutes I had spent myself within him.  I fastened my trousers, set the money on the table beside the bed, and left.   
  
I had hoped that my excursion would satisfy my urges for a good while.  I found, to my chagrin, that instead it had served to open the floodgates for those urges.  It was a matter of days before my return; with no one left in my life to check my behavior I indulged myself with distressing regularity.    
  
I did not notice Thomas until my third or fourth visit, when my nerves had calmed sufficiently for me to take a bit more care with my choice in partners.  For several times afterwards I still did not choose him—his similarity to my friend was unsettling, and the thought of touching him filled me with an odd sense of foreboding.  Once I finally tried him, however, I found myself choosing him more and more until, at last, I visited him almost exclusively.  
  
When my resolve broke again after Holmes’s return I entered that house with no illusions.  I knew then why my preference for Thomas had developed, and I lacked the energy to fight it any longer.  It hardly occurred to me that he might be otherwise occupied when I got there; it did not seem possible for anything to go against me in that moment.  Fate was on my side: I saw him as soon as I entered the parlor.  He smiled at me and rose, leading the way to his room.  
  
The door was hardly closed behind us before I was upon him, crushing his body to mine.  I rarely indulged in kisses during these exchanges—it the last bastion of my detachment, my final reminder of what was truly happening.  Now, however, I crushed my lips to his, all but devouring him with my need.  With this false Holmes in my arms I finally gave rein to the feelings that had swamped me upon that first sight of him in my consulting room.  All of the despair, the relief, the love of those three long years poured out of me and into the surrogate in my arms.  Our mating was fevered, frenzied, and I realized it was little wonder that Thomas had been able to divine my feelings after that.  
  
I woke to the scent of tea and the painful realization that I had fallen asleep in my chair, engendering a rather intense cramp in the base of my neck.  Mrs. Hudson was setting out breakfast and turned, shooting me a reproachful glance when she heard my groan.  
  
“It serves you right, Doctor, sitting up all night instead of sleeping in your bed like a reasonable person.  You’d best have yourself a bit of a stretch before you eat.”  
  
“Mrs. Hudson,” I said, following her advice, “has Mr. Holmes been in?”  
  
“And who do you think it was who told me that you were sleeping in the sitting room?  Oh, he’s gone again,” she added when I looked toward his bedroom door.  “Said he’d been out all night and would likely be out all day, as well.  Then he mentioned you were here and might appreciate a strong cup of tea and some breakfast, and I quite agree.  You look like you’ve been pushing yourself as hard as Mr. Holmes does.”  
  
I chuckled weakly.  “I don’t believe there’s another man on Earth who can push himself that hard,” I replied.  
  
As I sat down to my breakfast I couldn’t help but worry.  Holmes had apparently come and gone without so much as a word to me; it was unlike him these days to pass up an opportunity of rousing me from sleep, and that he had done so now added to my apprehension that had been building since the night before.  Where was he now?  What line of inquiry was he pursuing that precluded my company?  It was possible that he had embarked upon an errand that required the anonymity of disguise.  It was equally possible, however, that he had simply not wanted me to accompany him, and the uncertainty was eating at me.  
  
I had little to do that day, and the lack of occupation contributed to my feelings of restlessness and unease.  Thus it was with something near relief that I remembered, just before supper, the note that lay upon the table.  It was addressed, rather whimsically, to the “Sherlock Holmes Agency” of 221b Baker Street.  Feeling that such a salutation might indeed apply to me as equally as to Holmes, I opened the message.  
  
“Gentlemen,” (it read) “I write on behalf of my fiancée, Miss Cornelia Bedingfield, who requests your presence most urgently regarding the matter of her brother’s disappearance.  Though I have persuaded her to wait a while longer as he may yet return on his own, she is most impatient for answers.  I beg that you will consent to visit tomorrow evening that you might hear her concerns, for she says that she shall have no peace until he is found and returned to her.  Dr. Watson’s stories in The Strand have impressed her with Mr. Sherlock Holmes’s insight and intelligence, and she is certain that you gentlemen should be able to help if you will condescend to do so.  I regret that any meeting must take place here, as Miss Bedingfield has been housebound since an unfortunate accident early this year.  We shall await you tomorrow night at your convenience at the enclosed address.  
  
Yours in hope,  
Rupert Latimer”  
  
I set the note aside with a sigh.  In the midst of such a grotesquely fascinating case, it was unlikely that Holmes would be keen on diverting his attention to any other matter.  That was if, I thought ruefully with a glance at the clock, he even returned in time to keep the requested appointment.  
  
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind, however, than I heard the outer door open and close and Holmes’s familiar tread upon the stairs.  He called out something to Mrs. Hudson, and an instant later the door to the sitting room flew open.  
  
He was dressed as he had been last night, and his face when he spotted me was drawn and pale.  He said nothing, but proceeded into his room.  I heard water splashing and rose to stand just outside of his door.  His exertions of the day had evidently not gone as well as he had hoped; he always returned in a foul mood when he had run short on information.  
  
“It is nearly time for our appointment, Holmes,” I said, receiving only a disinterested grunt in response.   “Remember, the note from Mr. Rupert Latimer, requesting our help?”  
  
“I have no time for trifles, Watson,” came the irritated reply.  
  
“Hardly a trifle, Holmes.  His fiancée’s brother is missing.”  
  
“In the face of murder, anything less than another, more horrific murder becomes a trifle so I say again, I have no time for it.”  
  
“Very well,” I said, a bit nettled, turning away.  “I shall go on my own, then.”  
  
“Go where?”  I looked back, startled at the sound of his voice suddenly so close, to see him standing in his doorway, scowling.  
  
“The woman is housebound, as well you know,” I said evenly.  “They have therefore requested our presence at her home in order to hear the case.  As the letter was addressed to both of us I believe they will have no objections to me handling the meeting, once they learn how very _busy_ you are.”  
  
He glowered at me a moment more, then held out his hand imperiously for the note.  I handed it to him and watched as he pored over it, examining first the paper itself, the seal, the scripted address, before sparing a glance for the contents of the message.  I wondered at his actions, as I was certain that he had examined the note upon its arrival; I reasoned, however, that the recent events must have driven it from his mind.  
  
“Holmes,” I said in an attempt at equanimity, “if you have other matters on hand I can easily handle this meeting and report back to you.  Indeed, it may even be something that I could handle on my own.”  
  
He fixed his eyes on me with that singularly focussed concentration that was always so unnerving.  He seemed to be waiting for something more, some addition that I was helpless to provide.  When I did not speak his jaw tensed, but he held the note out to me again.  
  
“No need,” he said tersely, turning back to his room.  “My other concerns can be put on hold for the space of an hour or two, which I imagine is all I shall need.  I must change, and then we shall go.”  
  
I nearly protested that our visit could surely wait until after supper, but I held back the urge.  In the midst of a case food became one of Holmes’s least concerns, and he had never been overly sympathetic to those who were unable to subvert their own biological needs as he did.  In his current mood such a suggestion would likely trigger his ire and that whip-sharp sarcasm he wielded with deadly accuracy.  In the interest of harmony, then, I resigned myself to another missed meal.  
  
As Holmes emerged from his room and headed out without a word, however, I frowned.  There were none of his usual demands that I follow, and I got the impression that it mattered little to him whether I did or not.  As I shrugged on my overcoat I could not help but wonder: just how badly had things gone today?


	3. The Adventure of the Purloined Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A murder unveils secrets kept buried for years.  Sorry, I completely suck at summaries, maybe I'll come up with something better later on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first part that contains bits that are recently written.  I think I may need to reread some of the stories to get my voice back.  Oh, the sacrifices I make for my art. *dramatic swoon*

 

 

 

The address enclosed with the note led us to a townhouse in one of the fashionable districts in the West End.  Holmes did not utter a word from the time he gave the address to the cabby to the time he gave his name to the butler who had answered at our knock.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Holmes,” the man said, and stood aside to let us in.  “You are expected, sir.”  We stepped inside to see an anxious young man waiting for us at the end of the hall.  His chestnut hair was rumpled, as though he had been raking his hands through it in his agitation.

“Mr. Holmes,” he said with a nervous smile.  He all but vibrated in place while we shed our outer clothes and finally extended his hand to shake.  I hoped Holmes would not ignore it; to do so would be like kicking an eager puppy.  I breathed a silent sigh of relief when he accepted the handshake.  “And you must be Dr. Watson,” the man said, turning to shake my hand as well.  “I really can’t thank you enough for coming.”

“Mr. Rupert Latimer, I presume?” Holmes said.

“Oh, yes.  I’m so sorry; where are my manners?  But come in, gentlemen, come in.  Cornelia—Miss Bedingfield—is just through here.  We’re so grateful, Mr. Holmes, I can’t tell you how much.”

“Yes, so you’ve said,” Holmes said with a trace of impatience.  “A missing brother, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.  Cyril . . . well, perhaps it would be best if I let Miss Bedingfield explain everything.”  He led us into a spacious, well-appointed parlor.  “Cornelia!  They’re here.”

“Oh, thank heavens.”  Our attention was drawn to a young woman seated by the fire, her pretty, delicate features framed by curling waves of honey-brown hair.  Her eyes lit when she saw us.  “Gentlemen.  I’m so glad you came.”

“Of course.  I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this,” he said with a perfunctory glance thrown in my direction, “is my associate Dr. John Watson.”

“Cornelia Bedingfield,” the lady said by way of introduction.  “Though the circumstances leave much to be desired it is my very great pleasure to make your acquaintance.  Please, have a seat.  You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.”

It was clear, when Mr. Latimer dashed across the room to turn her chair around to face us, why Miss Bedingfield was housebound.

“An accident,” she said, seeing that I had noticed the wheels beneath her chair.  “Riding in Hyde Park this March.  My horse had been brought with me from Kent, and I’m afraid she hadn’t yet grown used to the noises of city life.  Something startled her, and I was thrown.”  She smiled.  “They tell me I’m lucky to have survived.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” she replied.  “Besides, I hardly asked you here to discuss the past.”

“No,” Holmes said, taking a seat.  “You wanted us to find your brother, so let us get down to the salient facts.  How old is he?”

“Twenty-two, Mr. Holmes, the same age as I.  We are twins, you see.”

“And how long, exactly, has he been missing?”

“Since morning, two days ago.”

Holmes rose with a small noise of disbelief; I saw his indignation and jumped in quickly.  “Miss Bedingfield . . . I’m sure that you mean well, but for a man of his age it may be rather premature to worry so soon.”

“Please hear me out, gentlemen,” she entreated.  “I swear to you I do not intend to waste your time, and I would not have called you here if I were not very sure that something had gone wrong.”

Perhaps Holmes could resist so pretty a request, but I could not.  I sat at last and nodded for her to continue, taking out my notebook and pencil.

“Cyril left the house that morning earlier than usual.  It is our custom to take breakfast and spend the morning together, especially as Mr. Latimer had been so long away on business.  When I came down from my rooms, however, Mrs. Hawthorne—our housekeeper—informed me that Cyril had left at dawn.  I was surprised to hear it, as Rupert was due to arrive that morning.  The three of us have been friends since childhood, and I knew that Cyril was looking forward to seeing him nearly as much as I was.  And for him to have left no word as to where he had gone or when he might be back . . . it was most unlike him.

“He had not come back by the time Rupert arrived, and there was no sign of him all day.  When I awoke yesterday morning he had still not returned or sent word.  I am certain now, gentleman, that something has happened.  When I was thrown from my horse Cyril was across town; by the time I was taken back to the house he had already arrived, though no one had yet sent word.  He said that he had had a sudden feeling that something was wrong with me and rushed back immediately.”

“It is certainly a well-enough documented phenomenon among twins,” I mused.  “A connection of sorts, formed in the womb, that transcends the physical.”

“Exactly, Doctor!” she said earnestly.  “We were born only minutes apart.  He knew when I had my accident; likewise I know now, know in my bones that he has come to danger.”

“If you are so certain of the peril,” Holmes said, “why call me instead of the police?”

“They would not help me,” she said bitterly.  “What are the intuitions of a sister to them?  As you said, my brother is of an age where he is apt to go off at a moment’s notice.  Would they listen when I told them that he has always been most steadfast and regular in his habits?  Or give any credence to my certainty of the danger that he is in?  But you, Mr. Holmes,” she said, leaning forward in her chair, her hopeful eyes fixed upon my friend’s averted face.  “I have read Dr. Watson’s accounts of your cases.  Surely you will acknowledge that a woman’s intuition may be worth something?  And only you could follow the meager clues that we have to go on and return my brother safely home to me.”

Holmes’s expression did not change, but I could perceive a slight softening in his rigid posture.  He was, as ever, most susceptible to flattery, and without fully realizing it Miss Bedingfield had hit upon the surest method of securing his cooperation.

“Have you a picture of your brother?” I asked.  “He will be easier to find if there is one that we might take with us.”

“Yes,” she said, gratitude clear in her voice.  “I thought you might ask for such a thing.”  She reached over to the table and picked up a cardboard frame.  “Cyril sat for this photograph only a month ago.”

I took it from her outstretched hand, turning it to take in this Cyril Bedingfield’s face.  As I did so I was profoundly grateful that I was seated; surely if I had been standing I should have fallen to the ground.

“Holmes,” I said unsteadily.  I could not tear my eyes from the photograph, but I could tell by his sharp intake of breath when he had looked at it himself.  It was little wonder; staring back at us was the face of that unfortunate young man whose body had lain slowly freezing in the East End last night.

“What is it?” Miss Bedingfield demanded anxiously.  “Do you recognize him?  Please, tell me what has made you go so pale!”

“Miss Bedingfield,” Holmes said slowly, regret clear in his voice.  “I am afraid that I have some difficult news that I must impart.”  He sat again, his eyes fixed on her face.  “Your brother . . .”

“No,” she whispered, the color fleeing from her face.  “That look . . . you are going to say . . . but no,” she said, shaking her head.  “No, he can not be dead.  He can not.”

“I’m afraid he was found late last night,” I said gently.

“You are certain?” Mr. Latimer spoke up in a choked voice.  “There—there can be no mistake?”

“I examined the body myself,” Holmes answered.

“But . . . how?” Miss Bedingfield asked.  Tears were trembling on her lashes and I looked away before I could see them fall.  “Was it an accident of some kind?”

“No.  I’m afraid there can be no doubt that it was most willful murder.”

A strangled sound escaped her and she pressed a hand to her mouth.  Mr. Latimer wrapped an arm around her, turning her face into his neck.

“Why were we not contacted?” he demanded.  “When the body was found, why did the police not inform us?”

“His wallet was not on him when he was found,” I said.  “We had no clues as to his identity until now.”

“He was killed in a robbery, then?”  He shook his head.  “But surely Cyril would have handed over whatever money he had been carrying; it is—was—is not like him to take foolish risks.”

I looked at Holmes, lost as to how to proceed.  “I feel,” he said, “that perhaps it would be best if we were frank with you.”  Miss Bedingfield looked up.  “Your brother, Miss, was found behind a brothel catering to inverted tastes that he had visited earlier that evening.”

She sat up suddenly, ramrod-straight in her chair and flushed with anger.  “How dare you?” she whispered, her voice shaking with rage.  “How dare you?  I assure you, my brother would never visit such a place; the very idea is insulting!”

We were all disarmed by the sound of Mr. Latimer’s laughter.  “Don’t you see, Cornelia?”  He glanced between Holmes and me as though waiting for us to acknowledge the joke.  “It must be a mistake.  Someone who looks like Cyril, easily mistaken by someone who does not know him.  Look at the picture again, gentlemen, and tell me if I am not correct.”

“There has been no mistake, Mr. Latimer,” Holmes said.  “His face is not one I am ever likely to forget.”

He continued to smile uncertainly; gradually, however, the gaiety faded from his face.  “He’s . . .”  He ran a shaking hand over his face.  “He really is dead?”

“Rupert,” Miss Bedingfield gasped, her hand reaching out to grasp at him.  “I don’t . . . I feel . . .”  Her eyes rolled back into her face and she slid limply from her chair.  Mr. Latimer managed to catch her before she hit the floor; I knelt beside them to check her pulse and her breathing.

“Only fainted,” I said.  “The shock was simply too great.”

“I should take her upstairs,” Mr. Latimer said, gathering her in his arms.  “If you gentlemen would be so kind as to wait here.”

We waited, as we were asked, in tense silence.  I had a dozen questions, but in Holmes’s current mood I dared not voice them aloud.  And so I scribbled my queries in my notebook so that I might remember them later, and Holmes stared as though transfixed by the fire’s crackling flames.  Finally he turned, and looked as though he might speak.  I waited; he hesitated.

“She is resting,” came Mr. Latimer’s voice from the doorway, and the momentary spell was broken.  Holmes whipped his gaze around to our client and I exhaled, unaware until that moment that I had been holding my breath.  Latimer wandered into the room, looking for all the world like a sleepwalker suddenly awoken in an unfamiliar place.  “She should . . . she should rest.  Yes.”

He collapsed in a chair, his head in his hands.  “My God.  I can’t . . . I don’t . . . please,” he said, raising his face to gaze at us in naked supplication.  “I do not mean to belabor the issue, nor, gentlemen, to doubt your word, but . . . you are certain that there can be no mistake?  That there is no chance . . . Cyril . . .”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I have never uttered truer words in my life.  To look upon this man’s grief-ravaged face, to see his hope give way so completely to despair, tugged at my sympathy as nothing ever had before.  I wondered, briefly, if this was how I had appeared at Reichenbach.

“You are most affected,” Holmes said, taking his seat once more.  “Miss Bedingfield mentioned that the three of you were childhood friends?”

“Yes,” he said with a ghost of a smile.  “The best of friends, the three of us.  Our mothers were girls together, and even after their marriages proved inseparable.  I had always thought that we would prove ourselves much the same, that we would grow old together, never parted and . . . the selfish fancy of an only child, I suppose.  I have, myself, been away from town and my friends for several months.  Such a great span of time wasted,” he said softly, and turned away in order to hide his distress.

“Miss Bedingfield said that you had been away on business,” Holmes observed.  “Might I inquire as to the nature of that business?”

The young man faced us again, a faint frown marring his boyish face.  “I . . . is that relevant at all?  To Cyril’s murder?”

“I’m afraid that at the moment I can say with no certainty what has relevance and what does not.  Therefore it is my habit to acquire as much information as possible, regardless of the subject.  I perceive that your travels have taken you abroad, to Egypt I would wager.  To what end?”

“Yes,” he said in surprise.  “I have indeed been in Egypt for two months, supervising Miss Bedingfield’s father’s most recent investment—a dig some miles west of the upper Nile.  But surely Cyril’s death could have nothing to do with that.”  Latimer sat forward in his chair, fairly vibrating with grief and desperation.  “There was nothing untoward about the business, and besides, Cyril never had much of an interest in such things.  I doubt that he had any real idea of what I was doing at all; he was only concerned with the fact that my absence should last so long.”

“Yes, a lengthy absence indeed.  A profitable one, however; your engagement should now be able to proceed apace.”

“I say, Mr. Holmes!”  Latimer eyed him in vague alarm.  “This is too much!  Just how is it that you know such details about my life?”  His expression hardened.  “You have been engaged to follow me, perhaps?”

“I regret to inform you that I am receiving neither so steady nor easily earned a salary as tracking your every move would certainly provide,” Holmes said smoothly.  “I’m afraid that my observations are merely the result of reading such small details on and about your person that are most generally ignored or else entirely unnoticed.  The bronze cast of your skin tells me that you have been recently in a clime a fair bit warmer than our own.  Furthermore, the note that you sent was not written on common paper but on a sheet of fine papyrus, often sold as a curiosity to visitors in Cairo.  To name Egypt as the country you had visited was then an almost childishly simple deduction, confirmed by your response.

“As for your engagement, the matter of your fiancée’s ring provided all the evidence necessary for such a conclusion.  The band is too large—it was forever sliding back and forth on her finger as we spoke.  It has clearly yet to be sized to fit, and yet there was none of the nervous excitement that one commonly sees in the recently affianced.  A new ring, then, but an old engagement, and as your character and your family could not be in question among such old and acknowledged friends, your financial situation remains as the most likely obstacle against an outward acknowledgement of your commitment.”

All of this Holmes rattled off without any indication of his customary concern for his audience’s interest, as though he simply wished to rid himself of the burden of explanation as quickly as possible.  It was most unlike him, and my concern for my friend only increased.  I resolved to speak with him when we returned to Baker Street and returned my attention to Mr. Latimer, who was now staring at Holmes in astonishment.

“Not such a very old engagement,” he said at last, as though that were the only part of Holmes’s deductions that truly concerned him.  “I asked Cornelia for her hand at the beginning of April of this year, shortly after her accident.”

“After?” I exclaimed with some surprise, and flushed when his attention turned to me.  “I beg your pardon.  I had simply not expected that your engagement would have begun after . . .”

“The fact that Cornelia can no longer walk is hardly enough to destroy my feelings for her, sir,” he replied with some warmth.  “She has been my friend all my life, or as near to it as I can remember; I was only two when she and Cyril were born.  I regret that it took such a terrible accident for me to realize just how much she had come to mean to me, but the thought that I might have lost her . . .”  He shook his head as though to banish the thought from his mind.  “When she had recovered enough to receive visitors I proposed at once, and to my relief and joy she accepted.  Her father had some concerns, as you surmised, Mr. Holmes, about my financial situation, and so I agreed to commit myself to him as an apprentice of sorts in the interest of easing his fears.”

“Surely that is a position that his own son would be expected to fill,” Holmes observed.  Latimer gave a weak laugh.

“Cyril is—was an artist.  He had no interest in the world of business, no desire to follow the path that his father had prepared for him.  It was with gratitude that he learned of my appointment, and thanked me profusely for taking his place, as he said, on ‘the sacrificial stone of the heir presumptive.’  Until, that is, he learned how long I would be away.  He berated me for leaving his sister in her time of need, of abandoning the person that I should have cared for most in this world.  We quarreled.”  He looked away, a light tic visible in the strained line of his jaw.  “To think that the last words I said to him . . .”

Latimer looked up again, grief stretched across his face until he looked far older than his four-and-twenty years.  “I thought that there would be time for us to talk again when I returned.  I never imagined . . . I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t . . .”

“Our apologies,” I said quickly.  “And our condolences.  We’ll be in touch should we need anything more.  I imagine that the police will contact you shortly, as well,” I added reluctantly.  I rose, and to my surprise Holmes stood along with me, though I had expected him to resist.  Latimer struggled to his feet a moment later.

“You claim that he was found at a . . .”  He cleared his throat and glanced away.  “To have visited such a place would have been against his very nature.  Can there be no mistake that he was a client?”

“None, I’m afraid,” Holmes said in what I thought an oddly cold tone of voice.  “The man whose services he purchased remembers him quite distinctly.  He appears to have been a frequent visitor to the establishment over the course of the past month.”

Latimer set his jaw firmly against the idea of his friend having custom at such a place.  “Will you be able to discover the man that did this, Mr. Holmes?  Cyril’s murderer—you will find him, won’t you?”

It was only through long years of friendship with the man that I was able to perceive his hesitation before he spoke.  “The criminal mind is seldom a well-ordered one.  It is quite likely that our man has already made his fatal mistake.  If the evidence exists to be found, I shall find it,” he said with his customary confidence.  Strange as it may sound such conceit brought me a small amount of comfort, as there was in it evidence of the almost arrogant self-assurance that was linked so strongly in my mind with the name of Sherlock Holmes.

As we took our leave Holmes requested that word be sent at once when Miss Bedingfield once again felt well enough to receive visitors.  There remained, he said, some one or two small matters upon which he required clarification.  Mr. Latimer agreed despite his obvious reluctance and Holmes and I stepped once more into the bitter evening cold.  The air felt as brittle and fragile as glass, apt to shatter at any moment.  Whether this was a function of the temperature or of the tension that surrounded my friend like a crackling halo was beyond my ability to determine.

I stamped my feet against the cold as Holmes hailed a passing cab, and I climbed in gratefully when it arrived.  It was a profound relief to find myself even partially sheltered from the wind.  My extremities were already beginning to tingle with renewed warmth when I heard Holmes call out our direction to the driver along with a request to hold for a moment.  An instant later he swung into the cab beside me.  There was the sound of leather against leather as he chafed his long, thin hands together.  The sight and sound so arrested me that I nearly missed it when he spoke.

“Please inform Mrs. Hudson that I should not be expected for supper; indeed, I may well not be back for breakfast, either, so she needn’t concern herself with preparing anything on my behalf.”  His words were as cold and brittle as the air, and though I tried in vain to catch his eye his own gaze remained steadfastly averted.

“And what shall you be doing, Holmes?” I pressed.  “Is it something to do with the case?  If you need my assistance I would be more than—”

“Watson, I neither need nor desire your company tonight,” he said sharply, turning glittering eyes on me at last.  He must have seen the shock and hurt on my face, for when he looked away I could perceive a slight softening in his features.  “My task tonight is far too dangerous.  Await my return at our rooms, and when I return we shall . . . discuss things.”

“No, if it is too dangerous for me then it is certainly too dangerous for you to go alone.  Holmes.”  I reached for his arm when he didn’t respond, and to my astonishment he all but flung himself into the corner to avoid my grasp.

“You shall not accompany me, Watson,” he hissed, burning eyes turned on me again.  “I categorically forbid it.  You will take this cab back to the safety of Baker Street.  You will not follow me, or so help me we are finished from this day forward.  For the sake of long friendship, if not your own neck, obey me in this.” 

He surged forward and was gone like a breath of smoke, leaving me alone in my bafflement and worry.  I heard the sharp crunch of snow like broken glass beneath his shoes before the sound was lost in the rattle of the carriage and the rhythmic clip of the horse’s hooves against the pavement.

I feared that he must have discovered the truth by now.  Certainly such a revelation would explain his mood, as well as his reluctance to suffer even a casual touch from me.  However, it was most unlike Holmes not to confront me at once with his knowledge of my habits once observed.  Perhaps, after all, he was still as much in the dark as ever regarding his good friend’s proclivities, and my assumptions were merely the product of heightened guilt and paranoia.  It was a thin hope, but it was enough to allow me to breathe freely again.

In any case, discovered or not, I concluded that Holmes’s current mood was too volatile to risk open defiance.  I did not doubt that he had returned to the scene of the crime, and that his concern for my safety was, in light of the murderer remaining at large, a legitimate one.  Furthermore I reminded myself that Holmes was a grown man and capable of seeing to his own protection, as he had done before our acquaintance began and for the three long years of his supposed death.  These assertions were repeated again and again as I paid the driver and made the slow climb up to our rooms, and though they did not put me completely at ease they did manage to calm my nerves sufficiently that I was no longer tempted to follow him and let the consequences be damned.

I did not fall asleep in the sitting room that night; indeed, I hardly slept at all.  The few hours that I did manage were shattered by every noise that reached my ears, each one in my mind a harbinger of my friend’s return, or else Hopkins’s arrival to inform me of the grim and terrible news that Sherlock Holmes, the greatest mind the world has ever known, had been brought down by a madman’s knife.  In the small hours of the morning I dreamed of Holmes perusing the agony columns in our sitting room, a great black void at the center of his chest and blood staining his otherwise immaculate shirtfront.  The benefit of being a brain without a heart, he assured me, was that the threat of that second organ’s removal was nothing with which he need concern himself.  At his request I closed the wound—“Damned inconvenient, Watson.  I’ve been wanting a pipe for hours now.”—and awoke in a cold sweat with my fingers still held as though clutching a suture needle.

Despite Holmes’s warning I was somewhat surprised when I sat down to a late breakfast and he had still yet to make an appearance.  His task must have been a delicate and extended one, I thought, and steadfastly ignored the suspicion that he was merely avoiding Baker Street and the man who waited for him there.

The morning passed with interminable slowness.  I did my best to occupy myself with the paper and an old dog-eared novel that I kept more in the interest of vexing Holmes than in the text itself.  My attention, however, was never held for long.  By half-twelve I had taken to pacing the length of the room from door to window and back again.  Never had I so sympathized with my friend’s distemper during long stretches of inactivity.  When I finally heard a step upon the stairs I nearly flung the door off its hinges in my haste to open it, only to reveal a startled Inspector Hopkins on the other side, one fist poised to knock.

“Doctor Watson!” he exclaimed in some agitation.  “Is Mr. Holmes in?  I must speak with him immediately.”

“I’m afraid he has stepped out,” I said with a frown.  “He has not, in fact, been in all morning.”

Hopkins’s lips thinned.  “Any idea where he’s gone?  Or when he might be expected back?”

“At any moment, I should guess.”  I stood aside, remembering my manners.  “Come in.  You’re quite welcome to wait for him here if you’d like.  Shall I ring Mrs. Hudson for some tea?”

“No, no,” he said, his hands twitching at his sides and his eyes darting here and there in distraction.  “I’m afraid I have no time to wait.  If you would be so kind, Doctor, as to deliver a message?  I must request his presence again in Bethnal Green.  There has been another murder, and I find that I should be quite obliged for his aid and advice.”


End file.
